Aftertaste
by Radioheaded
Summary: An expansion of the Amber hallucination from the last episode. House/Amber, House/Wilson
1. Chapter 1

She's in front of him, but it's not the wistful, wickedly funny woman with whom he shared a rather suspect bus hallucination. No, the woman leaning across his piano is smirking, mirthless. She congratulates him threateningly, in a tone of voice that hints he won't be making correct diagnosis after this moment.

House sits, stunned, his lips sticking to the harmonica as his hand drops into his lap. He blinks once, breathes out with relief when he sees she's gone, no longer across from him, looking like a cheetah gazing at an antelope.

But then…

The tip of a nose explores his neck; he hears her breathe in, feels the air come back out in a soft, warm puff that sets alight every nerve he has. The scrape of teeth across his jaw and whispered words that aren't processed until a few seconds after they're spoken makes him feel like he's trapped, waiting inside his own body for this to go away.

House waits to wake up.

But she stays, her touch moving from his cheek to his lips. Her mouth moves roughly over his; she nips his bottom lip with those attractively crooked teeth and then opens, tastes his tongue and the spicy whiskey coating it. He responds and they vie for dominance, for control over the other's body. He forces his way into her mouth now and tastes cinnamon, the ghost of spicy gum that burns the taste buds if left stationary.

She moves over him, slides those long legs over his in a familiar position and deepens the kiss so he feels a tightness that she responds to, grinding her hips forward and laughing into his mouth. He gasps for air between her lips and pushes away as best he can, but she's pinning him.

"You're not real." He says, looking up into her eyes. She moves back into his space, looks closely into his eyes; her hair falls forward, creating a shroud around their faces. It smells like lilies and before he can stop himself he reaches up, runs a hand through the strands. The hair ripples around his fingers like silk and he sighs, lets his air out.

She sits back, still in his lap and shrugs off her jacket.

"Does it matter?"

"It does when I start hallucinating without having been shot first," he says, staring at her breasts, almost exposed by the low-cut tank top that drapes in all the right places.

"Why are you here?" He asks, moving his hands to her hips. She laughs at him, looks up through her eyelashes and doesn't answer, instead tugging at the bottom of his t-shirt. He raises his arms obligingly and The Who are thrown to the floor in a black cotton puddle.

House repeats the gesture and reveals a white bra. He recaptures her mouth and they're connected, mouth-to-mouth, bodies pressed so tightly House feels like he's falling, but which direction, he isn't sure.

She climbs down from his lap abruptly.

"Wha—" He begins, her heat still in his mouth.

"Bedroom?" She asks, her hands on her hips.

He grasps the top of the piano and heaves himself up, heart pounding a tattoo on the inside of his chest.

"You might want to get that," She says, nodding toward the door.

"Get what?" House asks, but is interrupted by the doorbell. He waits a moment, staring at the entrance to his apartment. He expects Amber to be gone, to have disappeared mysteriously when he looks back, but she's there, waiting expectantly.

"Well?" She sighs, running a hand through her hair. "Answer it."

"House, open up!" A voice shouts from the other side of the door.

Wilson.

House takes the few steps to the door awkwardly, without his cane. He opens it, begins to ask what Wilson wants, but finds his friend standing with an enormous pizza.

"Hungry?" Wilson asks, laughing at the surprised expression on House's face.

"Trying to undo this week as quickly as possible?" House asks, momentarily forgetting the ghostly presence that is still in his apartment.

But not for long.

"Wilson screwing with you again?" She asks, moving closer so the space between the three forms an equilateral triangle. Wilson remains oblivious, but House can't keep his eyes from flicking over to her face.

"Yeah," the word slips out. House's eyes go wide, but Wilson takes this as an answer to his question, and walks toward the sofa, setting the pizza down on the table in front of it. He sits, then motions for House to follow.

"What do you want to watch?" Wilson asks.

"Don't care," House says, distracted by the fact that she's sitting down next to him, relaxing into his arm and the leather under her back. Wilson turns and looks at him, surprised.

"You feeling ok?"

"Yeah, why?" He answers, a little too sharply.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you have a sort of legendary habit of bogarting the remote."

"Do not," House answers, that same shampoo scent filling his nose as Amber lays her head on his shoulder. He jerks once, then scoots away from her, into Wilson.

"What is wrong with you?" Wilson asks, looking mildly concerned.

"Nothing's wrong with him," She answers, sliding a hand along his arm. House shudders, sending Wilson's plentiful eyebrows into his hairline.

"N-nothing."

"You sure? Because I'm pretty sure I've never seen you twitch before."

"Maybe you're not doing it right," Amber cackles from beside him. He mumbles for her to shut up under his breath, but she just laughs harder.

"God," He says, rolling his eyes.

"House…" Concern has leaked into Wilson's voice, and House's mind begins to buzz.

_Distract him_, House's mind whispers. _You can't tell him the truth. _

House does the first thing he can think of, which means that a millisecond after he decided to act, his lips were pressing into Wilson's. They're soft and warm, but stiff with surprise. Wilson tries to say something, to get a word past the lips that have been taken hostage by House, but the older man slides a hand up the back of his neck until it's coiled in his hair, and the kiss becomes a little harder, a little more insistent.

They stay like that for a few minutes, moving around each other, finding a rhythm, until finally they breathlessly stop for air.

"That," Amber says, "was interesting."


	2. Chapter 2

"Yeah," House mumbls, staring at his lap.

"Yeah?" Wilson asks incredulously, bringing his hands to his face. "What _was _that, House? What are you trying to pull?"

"Nice choice of words," Amber says, stroking Wilson's cheek with the tip of her finger. He doesn't flinch, doesn't suspect anything. House's gaze is locked onto Amber's hand, following it like a rapt pupil.

"Staring helps," Wilson says, wiping at his cheek unconsciously. "What is wrong with you? You're acting insane." House brings his attention back to Wilson's eyes, the expression there changing from anger to concern.

"Careful," Amber says, almost purring. "Don't want him to start thinking you're crazy."

"Just get out, Wilson." House says flatly. Wilson examines him for a moment, probes with those dark eyes, before nodding curtly. Just as his hand grasps the doorknob he turns back, looks at House once more.

"I'm going to find out what's going on," he says, and the door shuts quietly behind him.

"Thank God he's gone," Amber says, turning toward him, satisfaction playing at the corners of her lips. She moves toward him again, takes his head in her hands and brings her face close, but as she tries to open House's mouth with her own, he stops her, pushes her back, off, away from his body.

"God," Amber says, settling back into the couch next to him. "No would have worked too."

"You don't usually do 'no,'" House says.

"Something you're also unfamiliar with," She replies, reaching toward the pizza box. She lifts a slice slowly, carefully, letting the connected cheese turn into thin ropes that try, unsuccessfully, to keep the pie whole.

She sits back, one hand under the pizza, and takes a bite. "Ouch," she mutters. "It's really hot."

"As things often are when they come out of ovens." House gets up, walks toward his bedroom. "You'd better be gone by morning."

"Treat all your houseguests like this?" Amber calls back, her mouth still full.

"Only the ones that don't exist."

House shut the door behind him and sat on the bead heavily before laying on his back. He feels something in his hand; when he raises the limb he sees his fingers wrapped around a crust.

His mouth is burnt.

******

House sleeps restlessly, tossing and turning even after drugging himself to the gills with Vicodin. But the morning brings nothing other than the sun; no Amber in sight. He breathes out, relaxes for a moment before he remembers: He kissed Wilson.

He. Kissed. Wilson. With tongue. He did the same with Amber, but as she was a hallucination, he doubted there would be too many repercussions to that lip lock.

House replays the situation in his mind; the feel of Wilson's five o'clock shadow under his fingers (the itch that he can still feel now), the firmness of the other man's kiss, the lips that met his with an equal passion. The entire encounter plays back like a movie, and he is but an observer, unattached to the actual situation.

And yet, when he thinks of the softness, of the willingness of Wilson's mouth…

House's slept-in jeans become uncomfortably tight, but he ignores it, instead getting up as quickly as his stiff leg will allow, stripping off the t-shirt that clings to his sleep-warmed body, and pulling on a wrinkled button-down.

He grabs a piece of pizza on the way out.

****

The cold concrete ledge digs into House's hands as he tries to crane his neck as far as possible so as to see into Wilson's office. He's there…and so is Cuddy. He watches as Wilson says something with a serious expression on his face; Cuddy raises an arm…the angle of her elbow hints that she's covering her mouth.

She turns, then, and leaves Wilson's office.

House backs away from the edge into his office. His thoughts whirl; Wilson must have told Cuddy. Must have.

He walks into the hall, passes his boss, who only nods and says his name normally.

_She's acting,_ He thinks, and opens Wilson's door without knocking.

"You told her?" His voice is loud, demanding. He wants information like a child wants candy, and he wants it _now._

"No, House," Wilson says. His words sound like an eye roll. "I didn't. Why would I?"

"Don't all girls kiss and tell?"

This time Wilson actually rolls his eyes. He leans forward on the desk, perches on his elbows. His eyes meet House's, the expression unreadable.

"So I'm the girl in the relationship?"

"You've got the hair for it." House paces in front of Wilson's desk, keeps his eyes roaming so they don't meet Wilson's.

"House, grow up. You kissed me. I kissed you back. Stop pushing me because I'm not going to push back. It happened." Wilson leans back in his chair, folds his hands over his chest.

"Why are you so calm about this?" House says, his voice rising.

"Because you're either screwing with me, or actually wanted to kiss me."

"And you're ok with that?"

"Did I not tell you he had an 'experience' in college?" Another voice pipes up. Horrified, House turns to see Amber leaning against the glass doors to Wilson's balcony.

"Guess not." She says, laughing.

Wilson watches as House looks sharply to the right.

"House," he says, his brows knitting together.

"House!" This time, the older man's gaze snaps back to his.

Amber sidles to the desk and sits on the edge. She crosses her legs, allowing the skirt that barely covers her ass to do its job.

"House," Wilson asks slowly, watching as the other man's eyes trace something nonexistent, or, at least invisible to him, "What exactly is going on?"

Amber leans back across the wood, displacing nothing. Her face is inches away from Wilson's, and she examines him for a moment before looking back at House.

"Wouldn't he like to know."


End file.
